Part 35 (1/2)

”'I'm looking out for a star at which to throw,' said Boots. 'Do you see that tiny little one due north, that's the one I choose.'

”'Nay! nay!' said the troll, 'let it bide as it is. You mustn't throw away my iron club.'

”'Well! well!' said Boots, 'you may have it again then, but perhaps you wouldn't mind if I tossed you up to the moon just for once.'

”No! the troll would have nothing to say to that either.

”'Oh! but blindman's buff,' said Boots, 'haven't you a mind to play blindman's buff?'

”Yes, that would be fine fun, the troll thought; 'but you shall be blindfold first,' said the troll to Boots.

”'Oh, yes, with all my heart,' said the lad, 'but the fairest way is that we draw lots, and then we shan't have anything to quarrel about.'

”Yes! yes! that was best, and then you may fancy Boots took care the troll should be the first to have the handkerchief over his eyes, and was the first 'buff.'

”But that just was a game. My! how they went in and out of the wood, and how the troll ran and stumbled over the stumps, so that the dust flew and the wood rang.

”'Haw! haw!' bawled the troll at last, 'the deil take me if I'll be buff any longer,' for he was in a great rage.

”'Bide a bit,' said Boots, 'and I'll stand still and call till you come and catch me.'

”Meanwhile he took a hemp-comb and ran round to the other side of the tarn, which was so deep it had no bottom.

”'Now come, here I stand,' bawled out Boots.

”'I dare say there are logs and stumps in the way,' said the troll.

”'Your ears can tell you there is no wood here,' said Boots, and then he swore to him there were no stumps or stocks.

”'Now come along.'

”So the troll set off again, but 'squash' it said, and there lay the troll in the tarn, and Boots hacked at his eyes with the hemp-comb every time he got his head above water.

”Now the troll begged so prettily for his life, that Boots thought it was a shame to take it, but first he had to give up the princess, and to bring back the other whom he had stolen before. And besides he had to promise that folk and flock should have peace, and then he let the troll out, and he took himself off home to his hill.

”But now Glibtongue became a man again, and came down out of the tree-top, and carried off the princess to the grange, as though he had set her free. And then he stole down and gave his arm to the other also, when Boots had brought her as far as the garden. And now there was such joy in the king's grange, that it was heard and talked of over land and realm, and Glibtongue was to be married to the youngest daughter.

”Well, it was all good and right, but after all it was not so well, for just as they were to have the feast, if that old troll had not gone down under earth and stopped all the springs of water.

”'If I can't do them any other harm,' he said, 'they sha'n't have water to boil their bridal brose.'

”So there was no help for it but to send for Boots again. Then he got him an iron bar, which was to be fifteen ells long, and six smiths were to make it red hot. Then he peeped through his key ring, and saw where the troll was, just as well underground as above it, and then he drove the bar down through the ground, and into the troll's backbone, and all I can say was, there was a smell of burnt horn fifteen miles round.

”'Haw! haw!' bellowed out the troll, 'let me out,' and in a trice he came tearing up through the hole, and all his back was burnt and singed up to the nape of his neck.

”But Boots was not slow, for he caught the troll and laid him on a stake that had thyme twisted round it, and there he had to be till he told him where he had got eyes from after those had been hacked out with the hemp-comb.

”'If you must know,' said the troll, 'I stole a turnip, and rubbed it well over with ointment, and then I cut it to the sizes I needed, and nailed them in tight with ten-penny nails, and better eyes I hope no Christian man will ever have.'